Direct Mail Property List: Sacramento and Yuba City, CA

[Nic Williams]

Hi everyone- I'm reaching out for some input and suggestions on direct mail.  My business partners and I sent out our first round of direct mail about 3 weeks ago.  Our goal with direct mail is to find off market fixer uppers that we can rehab and either rent or sell.  Our property criteria and some additional information are below.

Criteria:  

• Location: Parts of Sacramento, CA and Yuba City, CA
• 3+ bedroom single family homes
• ABSENTEE owned
• 40 - 100 % equity
• Built between 1950 and 2013
• Last market sale date between September 2008 and December 2013

Additional Information:

• Property info came from Listsource
• Postcards sent by Yellowletters.com
• 6 month campaign planned, with 6 pieces of mail sent to each owner over 6 months
• Total Postcards Sent in First Round = 1025
• Calls from Owners: 8
• Offers Made: 4
• Accepted Offers & Counter Offers: 0

Our plan with this list of people is to identify owners that purchased when the market was low and have gained a lot of equity as the market has gone up over the last few years. We've had a decent response so far, but all of the owners we've talked to are landlords that are just interested in finding out how much they can get for their properties. So far nobody has really seemed "distressed" or had a real need to sell. The owners just figured they would call us to see how much we'd offer them. When we've presented our offers that are basically the ARV less rehab costs, closing costs, holding costs, and profit, we've been laughed at. And as I said above, none of these owners has really been distressed or had a true need to sell.

My concern is that the last market sale date criteria of September 2008 through December 2013 actually gave us properties that are NOT distressed and are most likely in good condition because they were all purchased somewhat recently.  I'm sure there are some actual distressed properties and owners in the group, but so far the data is saying the opposite.

I realize this is a very small sample size, but I'm curious to see if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions for us.

Did our search criteria give us a bad list of properties to go after?  Or is it too soon to tell?  Should we have targeted properties that were purchased much longer ago?  Or should we have targeted a different list of properties all together?

The current plan is to send out at least one more round of mail to the same list of owners and see if our response is any different.  If we end up with more owners that are NOT distressed and expect top dollar for their properties, we may cancel our 6 month campaign and move on to another list.

Any feedback or suggestions that anyone has would be greatly appreciated!  Thank you in advance.

Nic